Nights Lights: Music for the living and dead

Updated 9:23 am, Thursday, October 31, 2013

La Santa Cecilia, a fusion rock band from Los Angeles, will play Saturday at a Día de los Muertos celebration at La Villita.

La Santa Cecilia, a fusion rock band from Los Angeles, will play Saturday at a Día de los Muertos celebration at La Villita.

Nights Lights: Music for the living and dead

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Halloween is behind us. Día de los Muertos is upon us. As always, it's music time.

Muertos in the village

Here's the short version: Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, honors and celebrates the memories of those who've moved along; shuffled off this mortal coil. As is often the case around here, it has spiritual and secular/traditional and nontraditional aspects.

All aspects will be in play Friday and Saturday during a Día de los Muertos gathering in the original San Antonio, La Villita. Friday from 3-9 p.m. and Saturday from noon-6 p.m. the celebration is free. It'll feature a community altar dedicated to those who have passed, a living altar, a Friday night Day of the Dead Art Walk, calaveras (poems and skulls), Day of the Dead workshops, music and more.

For those wanting a concentrated dose of varied music, the Día de los Muertos fest will feature a pair of concerts in Arneson River Theatre, from 6:15-10:45 p.m. Friday and 1-11 p.m. Saturday. Tickets for the Friday show cost $23 at the door. Saturday tickets cost $13 in advance, $18 at the door through www.muertosfest.com.

As sacrilegious as it might seem in Texas, when it comes to stringed instruments, it isn't always all about the guitar.

For years, Rick Henderson has been learning about, and playing, the sarode, a multi-stringed relative of the lute that's one of the main instruments in Indian classical music.

Not only does Henderson get around well on the sarode, he puts a lot of effort into defying musical and cultural barriers to present the music he loves to world-music fans in San Antonio.

That's what Henderson and his collaborators will do Friday at 7:30 p.m. during “Shantikar: Confluence” at The Quaker Meetinghouse, 7052 N. Vandiver Road. Henderson will team with Pankaj Mishra (sarangi, a many-stringed bowed instrument), Salar Nader (tabla, a percussion instrument) and Joel Dilley (upright bass). Suggested donation is $10-$20.

Rest assured, you'll hear music you're unlikely to hear every day.

Blackheart Burlesque

It's not easy to mix humor and sensuality, but that's what a troupe of the famous, perhaps infamous, SuicideGirls will do Friday at White Rabbit during a stop on the Blackheart Burlesque Tour. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $20.

Known for proudly sporting body art, often lots of it, Sui-cideGirls also can dance. With choreography by Manwe Sauls-Addison, seven SuicideGirls will step through a music-driven show that salutes, and skewers, movies and TV shows including “Kill Bill,” “Game of Thrones,” “The Big Lebowski” and “Planet of the Apes.”

jbeal@express-news.net. Beal is host of the “Third Coast Music Network” from 3-7 p.m. Thursdays on KSYM, 90.1 FM. Check the Music Beat blog at mySA.com. @jimbealjr on Twitter.